We hope you have been enjoying the wonderful summer weather! With 16 September fast approaching, it is time for a preview of the first recital of our 2013/14 season, featuring Spanish tenor Celso Albelo in his London recital debut.

Celso Albelo is among Europe’s most highly-rated young tenors and his rise to prominence over the last few years has coincided with a regular stream of prestigious awards. Most impressively, Albelo has twice won awards at the Teatro Campoamor National Prize for Opera - Spain’s most important opera awards - first as ‘Best Newcomer’ in 2010 and again as ‘Best Tenor’ in 2012.

Albelo has since gone on to appear at such celebrated opera houses including La Scala, La Fenice and the Wiener Staatsoper. Past UK performances include Elvino in La Sonnambula at the Royal Opera House (2011) and an appearance as Ruodi in a concert-staging of Guillaume Tell at the Proms 2011, a role he reprised alongside Juan Diego Flórez’s Arnold at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro earlier this month.

Celso Albelo as Ruodi in Rossini Opera Festival's Guillaume Tell

One of Albelo’s most highly praised, trademark roles is that of Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Watch the video below to see him singing the beautiful aria ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ – which he will also be singing at his recital – as Nemorino believes Adina has fallen under the spell of his Elixir of Love.

The London Symphony Orchestra kicks off its 2013/14 season at the Barbican with a concert performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto, a gripping opera starring a sharp-tongued jester and a womanising Duke, who spin a web of corruption and deception.